Kathy McIver is a Democrat from La Habra and a longtime subscriber to The Times. Today's paper, she says, will be the last that will be delivered to her door.

Like many readers, McIver is angry. She is angry about The Times' coverage of the California recall campaign, and especially angry about the stories that the newspaper has run in recent days detailing allegations that Arnold Schwarzenegger touched women inappropriately.

If you would like to make a comment about a specific news article, editorial or commentary and have it considered for publication in the newspaper as a Letter to the Editor, please send it to letters@latimes.com -- send well-written individual letters only; no group e-mails. (Letters regarding Orange County issues specifically should be sent to ocletters@latimes.com.)

Letters to the Editor must also include your full name, city and daytime phone number (your number will not be published). Please keep your Letter under 250 words.

READERS' REPRESENTATIVE OFFICE

If you have questions or concerns about The Times' journalistic standards and practices (such as story coverage in general), or if you believe we have made an error, then please submit your comment to the Readers' Representative Office instead. Thank you.

Lewis Garrigus, 55, a retired financial analyst who described himself as a longtime Times reader, was among those saying he would cancel his subscription.

"It's not just me saying the L.A. Times is prejudiced," said Garrigus, who lives in the Orange County town of Stanton. "It's everyone. I finally got absolutely sick of it. There is never anything positive about Schwarzenegger on the front page of the paper."

Garrigus said that he hasn't voted in 20 years, but plans to vote Tuesday  because he is so upset by The Times' coverage. "I swear, I can't stand it anymore," he said. "There are never two sides of something on the front page. Who does your editor think he's kidding?"

Your obvious bias in assigning two teams of investigators to Schwarzenegger and none to Davis is appalling. Jill Stewart has noted in a 1997 article that Davis has been accused of physical violence against office staff, but do you check it out? Noooo. This transparent flacking for a particular side in the recall election is an embarrassment to the profession of journalism.

I listened to Susan Estridge (a DEMOCRAT Professor and TV personality with a SCREECHY voice) and a San Francicso Chronicle woman both say the LA TIMES was unprofessional and USED UNAMMED SOURCES and did not give Arnold a chance to answer these allegations.

This was the HEIGHT up unprofessional and unprecedented.

SMEAR campaigning FOR an election.

They both thought it was going to backfire.

I also heard people calling in to a talk show.. who said they were actually NOT for the recall.. but this was the dirtiest they had seen Davis campaign yet..and it changed their minds. Now they are going to vote!!!

I think it is going to backfire!!!

People were TICKED off before.. then he did the illegal immigrants thing. NOW THIS!!

This is the New York TimesLos Angeles Times Schadenfreude Ping List. Freepmail me to be added or dropped.

This is the Mainstream Media Shenanigans ping list. Please freepmail me to be added or dropped.Please note this is a medium- to high-volume list.Please feel free to ping me if you come across a thread you would think worthy of this ping list. I can't catch them all!

14
posted on 10/05/2003 12:01:12 PM PDT
by Timesink
(For a good time, visit clark2004.meetup.com. Ask for Mary!)

I see no reason why we should trust the LA Times to report on the LA Times. Keep in mind that "over a thousand" can mean anywhere from 1001 to the entire circulation of the paper (just barely over one million). I'm guessing the true number of cancellations is probably closer to 5,000.

18
posted on 10/05/2003 12:09:48 PM PDT
by Timesink
(For a good time, visit clark2004.meetup.com. Ask for Mary!)

No, it was all about angry people, some identified as Democrats or Independents by name, who were cancelling because the Times slimed Arnold 5 days before the elections, and he really has no time to respond, particularly to his anonymous accusers. My favorite quote came near the end:

Before a Schwarzenegger rally in Modesto, a warmup speaker, Rob Johnson, a radio host on local station KFIV-AM, said jokingly:

"You notice the media is right back behind you there. How about a nice wave to the media. Hi, media. Except for the guy Who's the guy with the L.A. Times? Find him and beat him up, would you?"

Note that the Times's editor stupidly admits THEY created this story by harassing any female in Hollywood they could get to answer the phone, until they were able to gin up enough women willing to make the claim. No wonder it took them weeks to accomplish!:

Carroll said the reporters had, for the most part, made "cold calls" to people in the film industry after hearing that Schwarzenegger had a reputation for mistreating women. For instance, he said, they had called women listed in the credits of movies starring Schwarzenegger.

What more proof do you need that the Los Angeles Times WANTED to make this story happen, instead of merely reporting?

22
posted on 10/05/2003 12:16:56 PM PDT
by Timesink
(For a good time, visit clark2004.meetup.com. Ask for Mary!)

"... Kathy McIver is a Democrat from La Habra and a longtime subscriber to The Times. Today's paper, she says, will be the last that will be delivered to her door..."

"... She is angry about The Times' coverage... that they would do that type of investigation and not balance it..."

"... To me this is a fairness issue," said Debbie Mahoney, a 52-year-old Northern California resident... She said The Times has demonstrated "true bias"..."

"... The Times has laid "this stuff out like stink bombs at the last moment... " said Bill Agee, a 64-year-old Capistrano Beach resident."

"He identified himself as a political moderate who is registered as an independent. He said he canceled his 20-year subscription to the paper last year. "I just got tired of the slant, to be honest with you," he said..."

"...Lewis Garrigus, 55, a retired financial analyst who described himself as a longtime Times reader, was among those saying he would cancel his subscription..."

"It's not just me saying the L.A. Times is prejudiced," said Garrigus... "It's everyone. I finally got absolutely sick of it..."

"... I swear, I can't stand it anymore," he said. "There are never two sides of something on the front page. Who does your editor think he's kidding?"

"... readers... have flooded the paper with calls, e-mails and letters..."

"As of Saturday evening, about 1,000 readers had canceled their subscriptions to protest the handling of the Schwarzenegger story. In addition, the newspaper had received as many as 400 phone calls critical of its coverage  many angry, some profane."

"About 800 people had written to praise the newspaper's coverage, many apparently motivated by a liberal Web site that urged readers to register their support."

"... Jamie Gold... The Times' readers' representative... is responsible for responding to complaints, said she was aware of few events that have ever triggered such anger by the newspaper's readers..."

"... Editor John Carroll responded that he believed The Times has provided balanced coverage... "We didn't have a story until the day we ran it," Carroll said. "We were working for seven weeks, seeking women, trying to persuade the women we found to talk with us..."

"... Carroll said the reporters had, for the most part, made "cold calls" to people in the film industry after hearing that Schwarzenegger had a reputation for mistreating women. For instance, he said, they had called women listed in the credits of movies starring Schwarzenegger..."

"... Some readers have responded to allegations made on television by a former Times staffer, Jill Stewart, that the newspaper had finished the Schwarzenegger story two weeks before it was published, and that reporters were unhappy that the story had been held up..."

"... Carla Hall, one of the principal reporters who worked on the story, said that was not true. She said the story wasn't finished until the day before it appeared in the newspaper..."

I thought this would probably backfire on the democrats and their media. People aren't as stupid as they believe. You'd think after defending Clinton for his rapes, attempted rapes, sexual harassment, intimidation of witnesses, and perjury that the democrats would be too ashamed to use these tactics. So Arnold pinched a couple butts on Hollywood movie sets. Maybe it was those bimbos who were photographed jumping on the bed in the Lincoln bedroom in the White House during the Clinton days?

Your paper should be renamed the Pravda. It's so refreshingly retro to be as unilateral as Saddam's voting base, isn't it? We see Davis spokesmen on TV claiming they had "nothing to do" with the hit pieces you cleverly keep releasing on Arnold Schwarzenegger. How Clintonianly true of them; the whole truth is that you and Governor Davis have the same goal: for him to remain in power.

I was waiting to see the heavy-duty tabloid research articles on Davis and Bustamante. The former was accused of physically abusing staff members to the point of them needing hospitalization, and the latter has used the N-word in public (it can't be a slip if you do not use the word at all) and never repudiated Mecha's racist mission statement. Alas. Only one candidate has to have his reputation and honor ripped to shreds in the paper.

You're the number one paper in L.A. so I guess you are like that old Saturday Night Live spoof commercial: "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the [L.A. Times]." A fine thing to be proud of. Just don't call this oldest profession you perform journalism.

CNN has continued to report the Hitler allegation. The groping story is old and would cause no great shock in California. However, CNN has reported the false Hitler allegations but not that it has been retracted.

It took them weeks to assemble the 'facts', their pursuit of truth having operated on the philosophy that 'parts is parts', creating a news item out of bits and pieces of cloth, as opposed to whole cloth, for which they could be sued.

They are simply a Rat Party organ, as they called these rags in the good 'ol USS of R.

where a story from your paper has been posted. Please note that it is direct proof, with names named, of individuals in Gray Davis' office who were ASSAULTED by him. Why is this not running side-by-side with your Arnold hit pieces?

I understand your editorial board is against the Recall and especially against Arnold. But I think it is appaling that a paper of your stature would stoop to actually changing the news coverage to support such a position. Your begrudging and late (and minimal) coverage on Bustamante's membership in the racist organization Mecha, your "October Surprise" partisan smear articles (no doubt initiated by Bob Mulholland), the fact you don't link MoveOn.org with the attempt by the Left to IGNORE sexual conduct by officeholders, etc. etc, etc. makes it clear you are in league with the Leftist Socialist government we inadvertantly elected.

If it wasn't for TJ Simers and Michael Ramirez, I would probably cancel my subscription (I may yet, I am still mulling it over...).

As a subscriber, I demand equal and reasonable reporting outside the confines of the Editorial and Opinion sections!

just use the new fake email addy... the gist is this: make up any name you want, up to 14 characters, and then add this:@mailinator.com. this is a link to an existing server, so it won't be kicked back as invalid. any replies or spam will be sent to this addy, which automatically deletes it every 20 minutes. Ive used this a couple of times to get on sites that force you to register to gain content. Heard about it on XM based computer show. have fun,

Typical lies from the editors saying they aren't biased and weren't taking direction from the Rats.

In addition to that, I watched the Sunday news programs and not one of them stated in their coverage of the Arnold "Hitler" story that the LA Slimes had retracted their previous story when they obviously got it wrong.

All they covered was the fact that the Slimes ran a story stating that Arnold said he admired Hitler. Agenda? What agenda?

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